Book Reviews, Short Stories, Cartoons, Poetry and Non sense.

Reading Faces

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Go to a public place and look around. A library, a bus stop, a railway station- you’ll see faces. Faces that will differ from each other. With the human natural urge to classify and typify them, your mind will start reading them. It is so easy to like or dislike something which in reality is so neutral and uncoloured that it almost defies logic. Almost because face reading is supposed to be a quasi-scientific field of study. One sees all kinds of eyes- eyes that beam piercing gazes, eyes that radiate indifference, nonchalance, sympathetic, friendly eyes. Then there are types of gazes. One can almost strip you naked with a stern, sharp gaze; and then there can be people who’d look lost, their eyes reflecting purposelessness coupled with a bit of restlessness- those wandering eyes scare me the most because they are the kind of people who’d infringe on your privacy without concern to your comfort level. A wanderer, by nature is serene and calm because he has seen most things, nothing excites him easily- wandering eyes however, are in the process of learning that calmness and so restless they are to reach out and grasp every ounce of knowledge bit out there that they’d trample over anything to get there.

Then there are noses. Short, round noses which go well with a smile but there is a hint of unwise goofiness in them; they’d make friends you can keep but cannot trust always. A well-formed, sharp nose has the opposite interpretation for me- someone who’d laugh less but is more trustworthy. All these are manifestations of the subconscious and they are subject to evolution according to one’s encounters with faces. Faces are the places where we look for keys to the soul which are by logic, not supposed to exist, or if the keys do exist, their retrieval is not supposed to be that easy.

All these judgments are meaningless and hold no water once the communication barrier breaks. But, once the barrier breaks, you do get to build more concrete, more logical walls, to define, to organize and to judge the personalities you meet. I have met many kinds of people. People who were independent, reasonable, selfish, indifferent, jolly, faithful, unfaithful but the best kind of people were the ones who could laugh at themselves and could share a perspective about their own actions. Now, this cannot be something innate, it comes with reflection and a certain sense of judgement about what is important and what is not. This process, is helped by travel and reading as both of them stimulate parts of the brain that are otherwise untouched by day-to-day chores. A hunger that develops within the person due to this brooding makes him humbler and more pleasing. Someone who is not looking to receive or accept anything is often snooty and unpleasant. You’d rarely find an indignant beggar or a disrespectful shopkeeper.

There are also people who’d open up easily and then there are those who are choosy and picky about the company they keep. Well, extremes of both types are dangerous and one should steer clear of them but then it is inevitable to align oneself with one or the other type of ideology. I, for one, tend to lean towards the former types. They are generally more romantic people and it is nicer to be in their company. Yes, there is the fickleness of feelings and the sudden rush of emotions that can change the equations easily but the later type (picky ones) are also emotional and driven by much stronger emotions; they indulge in much serious theatrics when their fortress goes down to shambles. Also, faith is not associated with whether the person was nice to you initially or not; it is independent and develops over time no matter how you choose to let it come to you. Then why not choose the more pleasant way- is my question.